No spinal cord injury for Quincy Black

When Buccaneers coach Greg Schiano saw linebacker Quincy Blackgo down on Sunday, his mind jumped back to the injury that Eric LeGrand suffered at Rutgers in 2010.

Schiano was Rutgers’ coach then, of course, and was relieved to find Black in better condition when he saw him on the field. Black was talking, looking Schiano in the eye and moving his right hand and the coach felt sure that there would be a less dire diagnosis than there was in LeGrand’s case. That has turned out to be the case.

Black suffered no spinal cord damage in his helmet-to-helmet collision with Chargers running back Ryan Mathews. He is having some trouble with his left arm, although he has use of it, and doctors are waiting for swelling to go down to do more tests on the cause. Schiano is hopeful that Black will make a full recovery.

“The spine is fine,” Schiano said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “But I do know that it needs some further tests to get right to the bottom of it and there’s some really smart, good doctors that are working on it right now for Quincy which makes me feel good that we’re going to get him the best care and get the best solution and get him back to being well.”

There’s still no timetable on a return to the field for Black, although it’s certainly a good thing to be wondering about that instead of whether he’ll walk again after such a traumatic injury.